Count of carcassonne questions

[MrNumbers]

Hi!

Recently I bought 6th expansion that includes Count of Carcassonne, and after the first game with it we have some questions about rules clarification:

1. There were some topics (I found two) discussing about how many rounds of deploying from City of Carcassonne during the game is allowed. In both topics community came to a conclusion that only one round is allowed. In our group there were moments when one player skipped his turn, then second player deploys his follower to a completed city and then first player said that he also wants to deploy a follower to that city thus the other player does so.
So, as I assume, there is only one round of deploying. Just wanted to clarify this rule once again. However, final deployment (at the end of the game) is described separately.
2. Just as the first question, second one also was discussed within community: about deploying followers to a farm with a barn. When it is possible? Absolutely clear that after barn placement. When else? At every moment? Because whenever I place a follower to a farm with a barn, it will be scored! Or only after merging some farm? But in this case should it be any farmers on a connected farm or, just as for empty cities, I can take an empty one and deploy a follower on it? Or only at the end of the game? When I can apply footnote 70? I think it also should be clarified.
3. What about fairy? If a player after completing his city places a fairy next to his follower, and other players redeploy their followers from Carcassonne in way that all players share points for this city, do all players score 3 bonus points from a fairy or just an active player? In fact, question is, is this redeployment "virtual" or to a particular tile?

[Carcking]

Great questions. I don't know if there are "right" answers. Maybe just opinions and house rules. In my opinion though the CAR did not get it completely right.

1. There were some topics (I found two) discussing about how many rounds of deploying from City of Carcassonne during the game is allowed. In both topics community came to a conclusion that only one round is allowed.... So, as I assume, there is only one round of deploying. Just wanted to clarify this rule once again. However, final deployment (at the end of the game) is described separately.

In my original English rules it specifically states that you go once around the board starting with the player to the left of the current player and ending with the current player. Each player on his opportunity may move zero to all of his available followers from the correct quarter to the feature being scored. The CAR doesn't seem to capture this. Not sure if it was relying on a different translation of the rules or not. We resolve end game movements the same way (which is contrary to the CAR) because there is no indication in the original rules that it would be otherwise. The movement round goes once around the table.

2. Just as the first question, second one also was discussed within community: about deploying followers to a farm with a barn. When it is possible? Absolutely clear that after barn placement. When else? At every moment? Because whenever I place a follower to a farm with a barn, it will be scored! Or only after merging some farm? But in this case should it be any farmers on a connected farm or, just as for empty cities, I can take an empty one and deploy a follower on it? Or only at the end of the game? When I can apply footnote 70? I think it also should be clarified.

The rules state that the scoring of a feature is what triggers the opportunity for players to move followers from the City. So when the barn is placed and there are farmers to be displaced and there is at least one completed city on the farm there is a scoring opportunity. Likewise, when a farmer is joined in to a farm with barn with at least one completed city there is a scoring opportunity.

A player cannot move followers from the City to create the scoring opporunity.

A player may not move followers to incomplete cities, roads or cloisters during the game as there is no scoring opportunity to do so. Only at game end when these incomplete features are occupied is there a scoring opportunity - so players may go once around the board moving their followers from the City to occupied features. Unoccupied features do not score at game end and you cannot move a follower to create a scoring opportunity.

3. What about fairy? If a player after completing his city places a fairy next to his follower, and other players redeploy their followers from Carcassonne in way that all players share points for this city, do all players score 3 bonus points from a fairy or just an active player? In fact, question is, is this redeployment "virtual" or to a particular tile?

The original rules state that you are moving followers from the City to the feature being scored. I believe it is an actual not virtual deployment - and the player may choose any tile of the feature to move to - so he would reap the beneifit of the fairy only by moving to the tile where the fairy is. This may even be a tile that is part of the feature but may be otherwise unoccupied.

[MrNumbers]

Thanks for the reply!
Agree and accept all points, except one:

Only at game end when these incomplete features are occupied is there a scoring opportunity - so players may go once around the board moving their followers from the City to occupied features. Unoccupied features do not score at game end and you cannot move a follower to create a scoring opportunity.

I mean only last sentence, because it contradicts CAR footnote 67: the same technics applied - feature is unoccupied but still I have a chance to occupy it by deploying a follower from Carcassonne. Why I cannot do so at the end of the game?

[Carcking]

Thanks for the reply!
Agree and accept all points, except one:

Only at game end when these incomplete features are occupied is there a scoring opportunity - so players may go once around the board moving their followers from the City to occupied features. Unoccupied features do not score at game end and you cannot move a follower to create a scoring opportunity.

I mean only last sentence, because it contradicts CAR footnote 67: the same technics applied - feature is unoccupied but still I have a chance to occupy it by deploying a follower from Carcassonne. Why I cannot do so at the end of the game?

You cannot move a follower to a feature unless it is first scoring. Unoccupied features at game end are not scoring.

[MrNumbers]

You cannot move a follower to a feature unless it is first scoring. Unoccupied features at game end are not scoring.

All the same, I don't get the point. Why then unoccupied features during the game can be scored? No one is occupying it so scoring doesn't trigger. But still I can move follower from Carcassonne and trigger scoring and it will be the first scoring for that feature. If anyone don't want to do so, scoring doesn't trigger. Contradiction, don't you think?

[Carcking]

You cannot move a follower to a feature unless it is first scoring. Unoccupied features at game end are not scoring.

All the same, I don't get the point. Why then unoccupied features during the game can be scored? No one is occupying it so scoring doesn't trigger. But still I can move follower from Carcassonne and trigger scoring and it will be the first scoring for that feature. If anyone don't want to do so, scoring doesn't trigger. Contradiction, don't you think?

That's not allowed either. You cannot move to unoccupied features either during the game or at the end of the game. The feature must be scoring in order to move onto it. You cannot move then trigger scoring. That contradicts the original rules of the expansion.

Here is an excerpt from the rules page I have:



I don't think the CAR intended to contradict the original intent of the rules. That's why I say there may have been an oversight or a translation issue.
 -OR-
these original English rules I have are a mis-translation. If that is the case someone please correct me.

[MrNumbers]

So, as I assume, you don't accept CAR footnote 67 and contend that it is wrong:

Question: Can followers in Carcassonne be redeployed to empty roads, cities, cloisters or farms?
Answer: Yes, and when an empty road, city, or cloister is completed, followers in the appropriate quarter of the city [followers in the castle can only be deployed to cities, and so on] may be redeployed and then scored immediately. In general, unoccupied cities, roads, cloisters do not earn very many points, and so this option in mostly useful for returning followers from Carcassonne to a player's supply.

If so, then CAR should be corrected. I don't think mistranslation could be the cause of such rule clarification to appear. Maybe it's another difference between HiG and RGG rules.

[Carcking]

So, as I assume, you don't accept CAR footnote 67 and contend that it is wrong:

Question: Can followers in Carcassonne be redeployed to empty roads, cities, cloisters or farms?
Answer: Yes, and when an empty road, city, or cloister is completed, followers in the appropriate quarter of the city [followers in the castle can only be deployed to cities, and so on] may be redeployed and then scored immediately. In general, unoccupied cities, roads, cloisters do not earn very many points, and so this option in mostly useful for returning followers from Carcassonne to a player's supply.

If so, then CAR should be corrected. I don't think mistranslation could be the cause of such rule clarification to appear. Maybe it's another difference between HiG and RGG rules.

I do not agree with footnote 67. It contradicts the original English rules that I have. But you're right - it could be a difference between the two publishers. Maybe someone with more knowledge can add to this discussion.

[Fritz_Spinne]

From the German BigBox rules: Wird im folgenden Spielverlauf ein Gebiet ... fertiggestellt, so dürfen alle Spieler noch vor der Wertung ihre gefolgsleute vom entsprechenden Stadtviertel in dieses Gebiet einsetzen. ... Es dürfen auf diese Weise also Gefolgsleute in besetzte Gebiete eingesetzt werden. ... ... Vom Markt auf eine zu wertende Wiese. (Gefolgsleute vom markt können nur am Spielende eingesetzt werden.)

In this rules there is only one time the verb completet (fertiggestellt), but 4 times it says the followers may move to the feature which is soon to score. There is an extra paragraph explaining the correct procedure, it says the player left to the player, who triggered the scoring, begins. (der Spieler links vom Auslöser der Wertung beginnt ...)

So I think, you can move a follower from the city of Carcassonne only if the scoring is already triggered. It is not allowed to trigger the scoring by moving a follower from the city of Carcassonne. No difference between publishers, the CAR is wrong.

[Carcking]

Thank you Fritz_Spinne! That helps settle my thoughts.

[MrNumbers]

Ok, I got the point
This changes a lot of things, for example, I thought that at the end of the game I can place followers from a market quarter to any farm, but now it seems to be only occupied farms, or if, for example, there are no occupied cities left in play in the end of the game, no followers can be moved from a castle quarter, no matter of Count position.
Still one question left: where Matt has got information for footnote 67? Is it his interpretation or he has asked HiG and has got such answer?

[Carcking]

To the Admins - maybe we should have a search word to identify suggested changes, corrections and clarifications to the CAR - so the threads can be found at a later time?

Any suggestions on the search term?

[pricero1]

It's worth reading this thread on BGG:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/162747/clarification-on-one-of-mjharpers-faq, particularly the comment:

"Also keep in mind what I bleive is the spirit of the question. The assumption had been that you would only go after a city, road, cloister, that a person was scoring. Some probably thought that an unoccupied feature, once closed, did not get scored. But the reality is, whether occupied or not, closing feature is still scored there just might not be anyone to claim the points. That really wasn't realized until Count came out."

[Carcking]

It's worth reading this thread on BGG:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/162747/clarification-on-one-of-mjharpers-faq, particularly the comment:

"Also keep in mind what I bleive is the spirit of the question. The assumption had been that you would only go after a city, road, cloister, that a person was scoring. Some probably thought that an unoccupied feature, once closed, did not get scored. But the reality is, whether occupied or not, closing feature is still scored there just might not be anyone to claim the points. That really wasn't realized until Count came out."

Thank you for this. I was not aware of the thread.

Until the Castle rules came out there really was nothing that difinitively said that unoccupied features scored at all - either during the game or at game end. Scoring was always tied to the feature being occupied. Castle scoring however allowed that if an unoccupied feature is completed during the game the castle will receive those points even though it doesn't score for any other player. It is also the castle rules however that say that castles do not score at game end for incomplete features - is that because they don't score?
 
Based on the Castle logic of unoccupied features scroing when completed during the game it follows that followers can be moved to the feature from the City when the feature is completed.

There is still nothing definitive that says that unoccupied features score at game end. Incomplete features only seem to "score" at game end if they are occupied.

It would be great to hear if HiG or RGG addressed this in a FAQ.

[MrNumbers]

So, according to the above information and Carcking changed opinion, we came to the conclusion that CAR footnote 67 is still true. And I agree that:

It would be great to hear if HiG or RGG addressed this in a FAQ.